Grinnell made some national press last week when the USA Today wrote a feature about how certain colleges pair-up First-Year roommates. Just like at many schools, Grinnell's First-Years are randomly paired up, and the last three years the students are allowed to choose their own roommates. But it's that first year roommate that can have such an impact on your college experience, and Grinnell goes the extra mile in making sure your match is a good one!
No less invested in their relationship is Andrea Conner, who led the process by which the two freshmen at Iowa's Grinnell College have become roommates. As director of residence life there, she oversees a staff of six who spent more than a week sifting through 450 housing applications to hand-match first-year roommates.
As ever-more sophisticated software takes on a growing role in college roommate selection, Grinnell remains one of the holdouts, arguing that humans can do a better job playing matchmaker than computers.
